Friday, March 26, 2010

Rainbows and Flowers

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Happy 4th Birthday to my little rose! She specifically requested rainbows, flowers, clouds and for the cake to be green.

This is a dairy and casein/gluten/egg/peanut free cake. My little girl is allergic to these items plus 7 other things (including coconut and almond). I used the Betty Crocker box mix (two of them to get a taller cake) and then substituted butter flavored crisco instead of butter and egg replacer for the eggs. I used an all crisco icing with soymilk and butter flavor and marshmallow fondant.

Now, normally I would make a cake for her from scratch but I wanted to see if this cake mix would get a better flavor than some of the other recipes, so we shall see how this goes! I am hoping to try some new recipes eventually but this time I had limited supplies and opted to go the easy, but still experimental, route.

All the decorations are fondant and buttercream.

Blessings!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Twilight: 16th Birthday Cake

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I made this cake for a neighbor's 16th birthday. I had never read these books at all, but knew from the neighbors that she like it. I used a cream cheese frosting recipe that was a bit soft so there was some buckling with my squares. But overall I like the way it turned out. I suppose I need to be humbled with some small thing each time I make a cake. I know that the knowledge helps me feel more confident the next time I attempt another cake!! :)

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I shaped these numbers from gumpaste and then painted the checkered pattern on with food coloring mixed in vanilla. I didn't have vodka soooo ya know...sometimes you've just got to use what you have in the pantry! There was some slight bleeding in the color because of it, but I was too cheap to go out and buy a food color pen! One day I will get some and go crazy! They look like fun!

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The apple is fondant with a real apple stem that I washed and stuck in. I also painted the apple with some burgundy food color to keep it from looking too fake.
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The top tier was a breeze (no cream cheese icing!) and was vanilla with vanilla buttercream and marshmallow fondant. The bottom tier is red velvet with cream cheese buttercream and marshmallow fondant. All accents are fondant and gumpaste.
And on a completely unrelated note...
Happy St. Patrick's Day!